Free to people who own the original release but also releasing as a new game on console, PC and Mac alike, it contains much more than visual polish. Quests have been rewritten, new side stories have been added, splitscreen co-op and controller support are in, and full voice acting has been recorded. We discuss all of that, as well as some of the smaller changes, along with some hints as to what’s next for Larian.

Swen Vincke is the bossman at Larian, they of the Divinity games and now ambitious Dragon Commander, and he’s taking his studio in a bold new direction: free of the publisher contract, they are going to develop and publish the game themselves. Vincke talks about this strategy – and few other issues like the real reason people said the PC was “dead” – in this wide-ranging and fascinating interview.Read the rest of this entry »

In an interview to be published tomorrow on RPS, Larian boss Swen Vincke argues that digital delivery should not necessarily be seen as the dominant channel for PC games distribution, and argues that retail could be valuable for self-publishing studios such as his: “Nowadays people are all talking about the indie revolution and the power of digital distribution, but retail has always been the powerbase of publishers and remains very important as a sales channel. It is still the dominant sales channel, in fact.”

When asked whether retail was still an option for self-publishing on PC he replied: “Of course it is! We did a deal in Germany with a local distributor for the last Divinity game and we sold more than 100,000 units in Germany alone. Convert that into revenue. That’s quite a lot of revenue.” Larian are intending to self-fund and publish Dragon Commander, after having moved toward self-publishing their previous games and taking more revenue than they would have done with a straight up publisher deal. More tomorrow!